


SENSE8 Star Wars

by joleashitsthetic



Category: Sense8 (TV), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25753987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joleashitsthetic/pseuds/joleashitsthetic
Summary: The story of Sense8 begins when the psychic connection of eight strangers of a variety of walks of life from different parts of the world is "birthed" by a woman called Padmé, who kills herself to avoid capture by a man called Snoke. The eight discover they now form a cluster of "sensates": human beings who are mentally and emotionally linked, can sense and communicate with one another, and can share their knowledge, language and skills.This story is 100% based on the TV Show SENSE8, but with the sequel trilogy of star wars characters and just a few modifications to create sense to the plot. Enjoy.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 17
Kudos: 19





	1. Prologue

A dark and big house in the middle of Chicago housed a drunken woman. Except for the dirty mattress under her lying body, there was practically nothing left of that abandoned building, but that was her purpose. All Padmé needed was enough drugs to put her brain to sleep and the courage to do what she needed to do, and there were no more drugs that could extend what awaited her.

Her body was shaking. She was sweaty, dressed only in a soaked white nightgown, but she could no longer distinguish the cold from the heat. There was a painful headache, enough to make her forget everything but what she most needed to forget. _Get out of my head,_ she asked, between deafening moans and whispers in that empty environment. She knew it would never happen.

 _Do it,_ she heard her second voice, _do it._

And then she had the strength to lean on her arms and fetch the small metal box that used to hold all the drugs and medicine she had been using for the past few days. This time there were not only drugs. There was a gun.

A six shooter .38 caliber. She would only need one.

She looked at the box again. It was an ideal time for her to reconsider everything and look for more drugs, but there were no more. She was unable to look for more. She cried.

When she threw herself against the mattress again, she raised her arm up in search of something. _God,_ perhaps, if she believed that he existed. What she was looking for was something more miraculous for her, more comforting and much more welcoming.

For a moment she feared that she would never see him again, that she would leave without being able to hear his words, to feel him again. It despaired her, making her reach out her hand even more, and when she thought about giving up she felt him touch her hand.

 _Oh_ , a slight moan came out of her mouth when for a second all the despair was gone and she was feeling healthy again. _For a second._

"I'm here."

"Anakin...", she answered him, reaching for his arms as he nestled her against his chest.

"Yes, my love."

"It hurts", she vented.

"I know", he comforted her, removing the hair from her face and kissing her head.

But he wasn't there. It was only the connection they had that made it possible to see him and feel him as if he were by her side. She was alone.

"I need medicine", she said.

"I'm sorry my love. There is no more time. It has to be now."

"I'm not ready," she sobbed in his arms, "I'm too weak."

"None of us were ever as strong as you", Anakin comforted her.

"I don't want anyone else to die because of me."

"They'll be hunted, born or unborn. You can give them a fighting chance."

And as soon as Anakin set her down on the mattress, it happened.

The birth happened. Fast as light.

Padmé now saw them, all of them.

"I can see them", she whispered as soon as she sat on the mattress, blinded by the image of her senses.

Rey, smoking a marijuana cigarette on the balcony of a building at dusk. Ben, parking the car he drove in a dark alley. Finn, curling up on a towel after a shower. Poe, pulling a gun from the holster on his leg while walking in a church. Rose, coming down the stairs from the lab where she works at. Hux, dancing in a club. Jannah, practicing a fighting stroke on the steps of a park. Kaydel, driving her bus en route to her shift.

And she knew everyone was seeing her, probably scared to see this event for the first time. _They don't know anything_ , she thought, _and they will learn about all of this alone._

When she threatened to fall back, Anakin held her.

"You did it", he kissed her forehead.

"Protect them", she asked while she was looking into his eyes.

And it was difficult for Anakin to agree. He wanted to deny it and say that she would take care of them, but no. He was already listening to the cars, he knew what was going to happen.

"They are here", he warned Padmé without hesitation.

"So is he", Padmé agreed. She used to feel him, that's what made her so dangerous.

She knew he was also there among them, probably by her side, seeing them both as if he was there in person.

"Fight him", Anakin asked.

"I can't", she cried, the fear rising in her throat.

When she heard the noise on her metal box, she was able to confirm that he was already there.

"So this is how you've been hiding from me?" Snoke asked, showing her the empty bags where she used to keep her medicine.

"Does he know?" Anakin asked Padmé, who was now able to hear the two and she nodded to answer him.

"You are giving birth", Snoke said, scaring her as soon as he rested his hand on her shoulder. "It's painful. I can feel it."

"Whatever he's saying, remember what he has done", Anakin told Padmé.

She couldn't take her eyes off him, even though she felt Snoke as close to her as Anakin was.

"Go", Padmé begged Anakin.

"Is that Anakin?" Snoke asked. He was not yet in Anakin's mind, only Padmé's.

"Please", Padmé begged again. 

"Tell him I'm looking forward to meeting him", Snoke teased.

"I love you."

"I love you", Padmé answered him.

"Does he know you're lying?" Snoke asked.

"Stop", Padmé said, this time looking away from Anakin because now she was talking to Snoke.

"Or is that still our little secret?" Snoke asked again.

"Padmé..." Anakin called her.

"I can't do it… not if you're here", she answered him.

"I will always be here," Anakin stated, "just as you will always be here", and he took her hand to his chest, towards his heart.

And it was the first time that she returned to her present state, alone as she was, without feeling Anakin or Snoke by her side. She still kept Anakin's last words in her mind while she was holding the revolver again, placing her fingers in the right places.

Anakin was already gone, but Snoke was still there and it was the first time he looked at the gun.

"Oh, come now, my dear. How many times have you made that threat? And we both know you won't do it. You can't."

He whispered in her ear as she cried even more, slowly moving the gun upwards.

"You are one of us, and there's still so much work to be done."

It was almost done.

"You're coming home. With me", Snoke was still trying, completely deluded that she wouldn't try something.

"No", it was the first time she answered him.

He was walking so fast for someone who seemed so calm, and he approached where Padme was with his armed men right behind him while he was still manipulating her right behind her, as if there were two of them in the same room.

"Give me the gun", he asked standing in front of her, "put the gun down", and he also whispered behind her.

"No", she answered him again, and this time she meant it.

"Stop her!", Snoke shouted, but Padmé was faster.

As soon as she opened her mouth, she fitted the barrel of the revolver as far as it could go and she pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was made really fast, so I'll update the image with a cool manip as soon as possible, but if you want to see the whole image you can [find it here in my twitter](https://twitter.com/adamdrivor/status/1291467479869460483), which inspired me to write this.
> 
> If you speak portuguese, [there's a link translated](https://www.spiritfanfiction.com/historia/sense8-star-wars-20130760). 
> 
> English is not my native language, so I'm so sorry if the grammar is really bad, I'm accepting any kind of correction.
> 
> Thank you so much if you're reading this.


	2. Limbic Resonance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please read the end notes! tysm ♡

_Help me_.

A young Ben was running into a darkened forest while that voice surrounded him. _Help me, Ben_. It was a little girl the same age as him, pleading for help while he tried his best to run faster. His lungs ached when he needed to breathe air through his mouth because his nose could no longer handle itself. His small, lithe legs tried to defy the laws of physics so that he could run more and more and more. He needed to get there.

 _Ben, help me_. She whispered again. Ben saw her at the door as soon as he reached the abandoned building. At first it looked abandoned, with splinters of paint cracking in the moldy walls and the wooden floor still damp from recent storms. He didn't care much about it, he needed to keep following her.

At the end of a corridor the same little girl was pointing in a direction Ben was likely to follow. He needed to follow, something was waiting for him, but this time he was no longer a young Ben. It was an adult Ben, following the tracks of a girl until he came across a woman lying on a mattress. The woman then stood up, looking him in the eye before lifting a gun and shoving it in her mouth before pulling the trigger.

Then Ben woke up.

His reflexes made him pull out the gun he kept on his bedside table and aim it as soon as he managed to sit on the bed, without much understanding of what was happening. _It was just a dream_ , he thought as he struggled to see better through blurry, half-awake eyes.

That was when he noticed the headache hit him, camouflaged by the shock of the dream he was having. It was an uncomfortable pain, as if he was having a bad migraine with a huge hangover from two days ago, and there were still outside noises, not only those trains on the tracks near to his apartment, but there was also music, loud music. Ben closed his eyes so he could try to endure the beats that the music provided in sync with the pain in his brain. _Electronic music_ , he identified, agonized by the coincidence that his neighbor was having a party in the apartment next door on exactly the same night that Ben was having the worst headache he’d ever had in his life.

At this stage it was useless to try to sleep again, so he went to his bathroom and filled both hands with ice water to wash his face. When he tried to open his eyes, he noticed that even the light in his bathroom was too sensitive for him. And the music went on, making him think that every minute it was getting louder and louder, invading his ears like parasites and hammering his brain.

"That's enough", he said to himself, sure he would need to intervene.

He opened the bathroom door and, instead of going back to his bed, he looked for a shirt to wear and headed out of his apartment straight to his neighbor's door.

Ben knocked on the door once, but nothing happened.

"Hello?" he called, knocking a second time, but still with no results. And the music grew more and more. "It's your neighbor", he tried to speak louder after he knocked for the third time, but it was already obvious that it would not work.

Ben took a deep breath, concentrating on not thinking about the agonizing pain in his head as he considered on using his privilege of authority. If it was another occasion he would refuse, but the pain took over his emotions and, when he realized, he was already desperately knocking on the door.

"Open up! This is the police!", at this time, screaming as loud as he could.

And it still didn't work.

Then he opened the door without permission, prepared to rehearse a usual speech of why he was preventing that party from continuing, but before he could defend himself he was faced with something extraordinary.

The apartment was empty.

There was no party, no music, no one. It was just an empty apartment, with no furniture or appliances. And suddenly he was no longer listening to the music.

x

It was a huge audience. Rey had played for many crowds, but that one in particular was bigger than the ones she used to witness. She used to watch and observe for hours those people who were having fun with her music, drunk and drugged up while they were jumping to a fast and repetitive beat. Contrary to popular belief, Rey was very fond of the type of music she worked on. Electronic music presented a range of possibilities in the music industry, and it was her favorite musical style, the reason that influenced her to pursue her career as a DJ. What she used to despise was the audience of this specific type of music.

She didn’t use to care too much about this crowd, especially since it was her audience, they were paying her, but she recognized that a large part of this audience was made of wealthy unemployed people whose brains were too melted from narcotics.

That night she probably didn’t have a bigger audience than she used to. She just wasn’t able to have a good look. Perhaps it was the remarkable headache that started suddenly when she started playing. She even thought there was a problem with her earphone when she heard a low whisper with all that loud music that sounded like " _this is the police_ ", but if there was one then no one in the crowd noticed.

When her shift was over she still felt the pain spread through the back of her neck. Maybe it was the tension, or the lack of sleep, but Rey was already used to not sleeping well in Tatooine. It had been a long time since she’d had a decent night’s sleep

 _I need a cigarette_ , that was all she could conclude, so she reached for her purse and headed for the smoking area, mainly to escape the lights inside the nightclub that were giving her more pain than she already had. As soon as she looked for a place to light her cigarette, she found one of the many acquaintances who were present at the party today. She always used to find people she knew.

"Oh, baby. That set was on fire, man", he was a tall man who approached Rey and greeted her with a little kiss on her mouth. His name was Thane.

"Yeah, the vibe was crackin', Rey", the second man agreed, and Rey also knew him as Amedda. "It was like a... Like a tight leash around me goolies."

"She can spin for a girl, can't she?" Thane asked the third man that was there with them. This one Rey didn't know who he was.

"She can spin. Period", the third man replied, leaving Thane slightly embarrassed as he fixed his eyes on Rey. She was also embarrassed. "Seen a lot of people play here. It doesn't feel like that."

"Thank you", Rey answered him.

"This is the guy I was telling you about."

"I'm Unkar Plutt, but everyone calls me Plutt."

"Gotta come with us, man. The shit that he has got has got the power to blow our fuckin' brains out", Thane laughed and then he and Amedda went to high five while they were laughing, but Rey and Plutt were not finding it funny.

In fact, Plutt kept looking at her, as if he was mesmerized by her. Rey was far away, as she always used to be, absorbed in her thoughts and never in the present.

"Sorry, really bad migraine", she said.

"I get it," Plutt said, "all that energy and emotion."

"Tell him about your freak out in the park", Thane asked Rey, making her annoyed by his behavior.

"Thane, you fuckin' dick."

"No, it's cool, man. Plutt, he gets it", he told her, but it was not something that Rey wanted to talk about with other people, especially those she didn't know.

"He said you had a vision."

 _Shit_ , she thought, but she still denied it.

"No, it was too many drugs."

But she knew it wasn't. She had never seen anything like what she saw, and even there, in that smoking area, she could still remember what she saw, as real as if she had actually witnessed it.

That woman, staring at her on an old mattress, ready to fire the shot from the gun she had put into her mouth.

x

There was blood on his hands. There was also blood on his face and on his clothes, but mostly on his hand. As soon as he found a container with holy water he sank his free hand and cleaned it. _God, forgive me_ , he thought, trying to ignore that he was covered in blood that was not his own and with a gun in his other hand, walking on sacred ground towards the priest.

"Tino! Don't do this!" she shouted, from across the church as she ran into his arms.

"My son?" the priest asked, as soon as he finished getting up.

"Don't do this, I beg of you, I love you!" she whispered as soon as she reached his arms, but he had already made his promise.

"It's too late", he replied, pushing her aside and giving his attention to the priest.

"Have you come to confess your sins, my son?" the priest asked him, not looking into his eyes.

"No, _Padre_ ", he denied it, and raised the gun towards the priest's head. "I've come to blow your fucking brains out."

And the priest looked at him, confused:

"What? I'm sorry, are we going off script?"

"Cut!", the other voice came from behind the scenes. It was the director of the movie who came out from behind the camera and approached the two actors. "Padre, take five. Poe, what is going on with you? Yesterday you were having visions of suicidal angels and today you can't remember your lines. Are you ok, baby?"

As soon as one of the assistants offered him a bottle of water, Poe took a deep breath. He didn't know what had crossed his mind the moment he thought about that improvised phrase.

"I don't know. I'm not feeling myself today."

"I don't need you to be yourself," the director answered him, "I need you to be this guy, Tino El Caído."

"Right," Poe agreed, trying to focus on his role again, but the last two days were not letting him focus. "Let's do it."

"Yes", his director smiled, but Poe imagined that he sympathized more with the development of his work than with Poe himself. "OK, people!", he shouted, and everyone took their positions again.

They shot three or four takes before Poe managed to return to his dressing room, already annoyed by the mess that was in his head. Poe was a perfectionist actor, and when nothing went as planned he was more than angry, he was sad.

"Who are you? Who am I?" Poe asked in front of his dressing room mirror. He flexed his arms to take the tension out of his body. " _Blow your fucking brains out_ , where's that coming from?"

He started pacing, between revising his script and repeating vocal exercises that his speech therapist had given him. Occasionally he would give himself a little slap on the face, perhaps to see if it made him come back to reality.

"Who am I? I'm Tino El fucking Caído, I'm the fallen one", he repeated, trying to convince himself of his role while looking at himself in the mirror, but as soon as he stopped talking and moving, he looked at his pants.

It was a fucking boner.

Poe dropped the script on the chair next to him and went to one of the pillars inside his dressing room, leaning on the wall and leaning until his penis touched the fold. Then he moved his hips, finding a friction to reduce his pleasure while he repeated softly "I'm Tino El Caído, the fallen one."

Sometimes he came back to look at himself in the mirror, repeating his lines and jumping in the same place at least twenty times.

"Diet coke, please!", he shouted, "What happened in my past nobody knows, not the writers, not the directors," he repeated again for his own reflection, "a man with a haunted past. That's what the script says."

Until he threw the script away, stressed by the situation and trying not to lose his mind.

He returned to focusing on his penis, but this time he was in the fold of the little closet, throwing his hips up and down while arching his head back. He just didn't expect to hear his dressing room door suddenly open, startling him and causing him to quickly throw himself back.

"Yeah?" he asked, without first realizing who was there.

"Hey", it was the actress who played the role of the nun. Her name was Cassandra, a great actress according to his opinion. "Just checking everything is OK", as soon as she entered she closed the door again.

"Yeah, everything is OK", Poe replied, leaning on the wooden table that was part of the decoration.

"I just thought maybe I did something wrong", she said while she was looking at him from the other side of the dressing room.

"No, no. Please, no. You were great. You were fantastic. It was me that, you know..."

"You're just always so perfect", she said, with a smile from Poe's comment.

"I don't know what is going on with me", he denied, taking a sip of water from the bottle on the table.

And she was ready to answer him, if her eyes had not moved towards the boner in Poe's pants. Even Cassandra couldn't hide it because Poe followed her gaze, and he knew that she was looking at his cock. He was quiet, expecting a startled reaction from her, but instead, she laughed. Not a loose laugh, but a sly, malicious smile, and Poe was scared.

"Maybe there's something that I can help you with?" she asked, getting closer and closer to him while he was still thinking about something to say. Before he could react, Poe felt her hand rub his dick. It made him jump.

"Cassandra..." he tried to stop her, but she had already pulled on his belt to give enough space for her to push her hand into his underwear. "Wait!"

That was when he managed to stop her.

"There is nothing I'd like more", he started saying, after pushing her hand out.

He would like to say why he couldn't do that. He looked into the eyes of that thirsty woman, and even a beautiful woman, but he didn't know how to tell her the truth.

"If only my heart did not belong to another", that's what he managed to answer. It wasn't a lie, she just didn't know to whom.

Poe avoided looking at her disappointed countenance as he closed the belt of his pants again, hoping she would answer something or just leave.

"She's a very lucky woman."

 _Yes, a woman_ …

x

His body was so limp. He was rarely taken by surprise, but this time Poe had arrived earlier and had woken him up in the middle of the morning. Him and Poe used to have different routines. When he was in the studio all day shooting for some movie, Finn used to spend all morning sleeping because he had spent the whole night finishing his jobs. When Finn didn't have any jobs and was able to wake up early and see the sun, Poe probably used to have to spend the morning in the studio. But every time they always managed to meet and talk; dinners and drinks always ended up in bed.

Finn loved to fuck as soon as he woke up, and having Poe wake him up motivated him to take off his still dirty clothes and to fuck him before they talk about their days. When they were done, Poe stroked his face while he was admiring a semi-awake Finn.

"Good?" Poe asked, offering a trail of kisses between his mouth and his neck, "Did that help honey's headache?"

"I can't answer that, because you literally just fucked my brains out."

Usually Poe's first reaction would be to laugh at his joke, but he spent a few seconds staring at him so thoughtfully that Finn was even afraid to ask.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I just... had a _déjà vu_ " Then he laughed, the smile Finn was waiting for. "Happy Pride."

"Happy Pride" Finn kissed him, even more lovingly than he had kissed him that morning.

Poe got up to take a shower while Finn ran his finger over the screen of his cell phone and notified himself of the messages he had received and his social medias, until he found an invitation from an old friend. He shouted so Poe could hear:

"It's Jarek. He wants to know if I can help him organize tonight's show. You want to come?"

Finn predicted Poe would feel intimidated by that question. Poe had not yet revealed his sexual orientation to the world, especially because of his career, and Finn had respected him from the start about that decision, however complicated it was for him to deal with in some ways, and unlike Finn who was already openly a gay and trans man. To the world he still was the "straight man", and everything could end up looking like a risk, even a simple LGBT-themed show. And as soon as Finn saw his boyfriend's face through the bathroom door, he knew that Poe had spent a good few seconds thinking about it.

"Sure. Why not?!"

And then Finn's smile appeared on his face because that was unheard of.

x

Her mother's hands were so soft.

Despite all the hard work his mother had to put up with for years, Kaydel still thought her hands were too soft. Softer than hers, and she hadn't been through half of what her mother had been through, mostly to raise her. _She deserves everything_ , she thought as she massaged her mother's hands while she was lying on the bed.

"My daughter," her mother asked her, a weak voice due to her weak immune system, "why are you so good to me?"

"You are my one and only mother," she repeated as she reached for the small pills on the side of the bed and handed them to her mother. "You gave me the light and love in my heart."

As soon as she took the pills, Kaydel offered her a glass of water to help her swallow, and after putting the glass away she offered her a kiss on her forehead.

"I have to go." She said, with a smile on her face that brightened her mother's day, however sick she was.

"Goodbye, my baby."

"I have this feeling," Kaydel said before opening the door. "I'm going to have a really good day today." She smiled, and so she left her small and humble house, walking a few meters until she could locate her bus that never failed to make her smile.

It was a relatively large bus, enough to attend a good demand of passengers that Kaydel could handle, along with her friend and partner Jess Pava. The painting was the most important part, a lot of painted pictures of Princess Leia Organa, a Star Wars character of whom Kaydel was a huge fan, and a giant sign with her name on it, plastered on the side of the bus, large and visible enough.

"Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you'll never make it through the night." She repeated to herself with a smile on her face, a quote from her favorite character.

It didn't take too long for her to see Jess before she stepped into the driver's seat and her friend could settle down to get the attention of everyone waiting for a bus.

That was the most difficult part. Bracca did not use to be a very safe place, those dominated by hunger and corruption had only two choices: To survive in a fair or unfair way. That's when they used to see the gangs and robbers that dominated the most popular areas, making most people just always opt for security. And convincing them of security was much more complicated than imagined, Kaydel only learned about it after noticing that she almost never had passengers as soon as he decided to enter this business.

Kaydel was always trying to be positive, but Jess's screams at the bus door to try to bring more customers along with the sudden headache that came over her were starting to make her impatient. She didn't mind failing sometimes, but her mother's medicines depended on the money she made, and she couldn't make money without passengers.

"When are we leaving?" Kaydel heard an old woman inside her bus asking Jess from one of the few seats occupied.

"Right now." Jess answered her.

"I have to be downtown by nine."

"You'll be there long before nine, Ma'am. Come rain or shine, Leia Organa is always on time." Jess made a joke. She loved to call Kaydel by the name of "Leia". "We need to go." Jess whispered to Kaydel.

"We need more customers," Kaydel denied, "we're barely covering the cost of gas."

"We don't need customers, we need a Facebook page. Look at this." Jess said, and she noticed that Jess was as impatient as she was.

When they both saw the bus next to their preparing to leave, the two undid any trace of a smile on their faces. Everyone has a competing company, and that was theirs, a huge vehicule with Luke Skywalker paintings, with more passengers inside than the bus itself could handle.

"Every day is the same. Everybody loves the Luke Skywalker bus."

"You dumb fucks!" The driver shouted at Kaydel and Jess before leaving. "No one gives a shit about Leia Organa."

Kaydel loves Luke Skywalker, it was her second favorite character. What bothered her was the favoritism of his fans, and not directly with the character, but as they sometimes forgot about the other characters, especially Leia Organa, who was a woman instead a man.

"Maybe he's right" Kaydel sighed.

"No" Jess denied.

"Maybe Leia's time is over."

"No! Never!" Her friend denied it again. "Come on, Ko, Leia Organa is a legend! She doesn't need lightsabers and powers to fight. She fights with her heart. Come on! Rebels' heroine never die. Don't forget that."

And Kaydel smiled again, disappointed with herself for thinking that way after giving her friend a huge hug.

"Get us more customers", she joked.

"Excuse me", a third voice appeared at the bus door.

"Leia Organa is watching over us", Jess joked, "Yes, sir, are you going to the city?" Jess asked the prospective client.

"Yes, please."

"Then take a seat."

"No, but I've got no money."

And again Kaydel and Jess's smile disappeared.

"I'm sorry, everyone must pay", Jess told him.

That's when the man looked at the chicken he held and offered it to Jess.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Jess asked, and Kaydel almost laughed without meaning to.

"This is worth more than the fare."

"Look, I believe you, but how do I return change out of a chicken?"

"Save me an egg."

And then Kaydel couldn't help but laugh.

x

A chicken.

A fucking chicken.

Jannah was startled as soon as she saw a chicken jumping on her table, more startled to realize that there was no chicken there than by the fact that she had actually seen a chicken. She was grateful that her scream hadn't come out too loud, so she wouldn't have caught anyone's attention and it wouldn't have intensified the headache she was feeling.

When the phone rang, she got scared too, but the feeling of anger followed shortly after when her head screamed in pain again. So she was quick to answer:

"Yes?"

"Ms. Jannah, I have Mr. Nihilus from the bank on the line again", it was her assistant.

The feeling of fear ran through her body when she remembered that subject that she wanted to forget every minute. She would have to face it, but she kept putting it off as if it were a boring television advertisement. So she replied:

"Tell Mr. Nihilus that I'm in a meeting."

Jannah was so absorbed in her thoughts as she looked at the big red folder on her desk that had everything to do with the subject she had to discuss with Mr. Nihilus, that she forgot to check that her assistant had not yet hung up.

"Your brother's assistant called. She said he still wasn't here, and Mr. Fett has just arrived."

 _Of course he's not here_ , she thought, _there are better places to sniff cocaine from any stripper's boobs than in his office room. The problem is, he always wants to snort cocaine from a stripper's boobs._

Jannah reached for the button that allowed her to answer the call, and calmly answered it:

"I'll meet Mr. Fett in the conference room."

It wasn't quite the answer Mr. Fett was going to expect, but if he was in such a hurry then it was all she could offer him.

Those men didn't usually respect gender equality, that was at least what Jannah heard from any individuals other than white cis men. It was easier to conclude that they were conservative assholes, but then she would have to assume that she lived in a completely intolerant environment. The country was the most responsible for this kind of thoughts, but her father's business kept these ideals faithfully, so it was doubly trashy.

Jannah got up and she adjusted her skirt before she could make her way to the conference room, where she met a smiling Boba Fett on the way to the same room.

"Mr. Fett," she smiled, an incredibly fake smile, "you do us a great service with your presence this morning." She had her own assistant with her.

"Who are you?" He asked her.

"I'm Jannah Calrissian, Vice president and Chief Financial Officer", Jannah gave to him her business card.

" _Oh,_ the sister," he said, with contempt in his voice as he handed the card to his assistant without even look at it, "where is your brother?"

"He was... unavoidably detained, but I will be happy to walk you through our proposal."

"Look," he interrupted her, "I'm here to close. Women don't close things," then he looked at her body with a small smile, "they open them."

Jannah took a deep breath.

"Excuse me?"

"If your brother is not here, that means this company is not ready to..."

While Jannah was pretending listening to him, her fist closed with such force that she felt her fingernail start to scratch her skin. All the anger she was feeling went through her entire body until it reached her hands, where she would've get up and throw them in Boba Fett's face if she hadn't immediately heard her brother entering the room and interrupting what it could have been a disaster.

"Boba Fett, you sly old fox!" he called him, allowing Jannah to breathe even deeper and calm down, but as soon as she closed her eyes she suddenly found herself in another scenario.

It was a huge old, abandoned room. In addition to all that dirt there was a woman in front of her lying on an old mattress, and it was so dark that it took Jannah a long time to notice she was dead.

"Hey, sis," her brother called her back to reality, "go get us a couple coffees."

And Jannah nodded, too mesmerized by what she had just seen to be upset about the previous situation.

x

" _Limbic resonance_ ", that was what Plutt told Rey while they were listening to Amedda's story. " _My nieces come downstairs, two little birds, they climb onto the couch, and cuddle up in my arms. Now we're close and all, but we've never done nothing like this in their lives. We didn't know it yet, but that exact moment, my sister was at the supermarket, and she started bleeding bad. Something internal. There was blood everywhere, and they had to call an ambulance, but my nieces knew. They knew about my sister. Somehow they just knew she was in trouble_ "

They all listened carefully to Amedda's story as Plutt tried to explain what made them so curious. " _Limbic resonance. It's a language older than our species."_ It was all he said. " _He thinks that's what happened to you in the park_ ," Thane added, " _and it's all got to do with this chemical, DMT_ ", everything Rey needed to hear in order to pay attention to what they wanted to warn her that left her pensive for many hours that night.

" _It's a simple molecule present in all living things. Scientists talk about it being part of an eco-biological synaptic network. When people take it, they see their birth, their death, worlds beyond this one. They talk of truth... Connection... Transcendence_ " Plutt said, marking those words in Rey's brain as she finished her shift.

It was an interesting concept. Rey wanted to know more about what had happened to her, not only because of what she had witnessed about that woman, nor because of the tragedy of seeing her dead, but especially about everything she had witnessed in her life, what she believed she was responsible for, the death of her parents,...

As curious as she was, Rey couldn't say whether she was ready to face her past again, especially if she could only reveal a door that would open space to sink her into the ghosts of her past again. So she decided to forget, and went on all night just thinking about going back to her house soon and getting rid of that damn headache.

As soon as she saw what time it was, she searched for her belongings and headed for the exit, but when she climbed the stairs, she was startled and hesitated before going up. At the top of the stairs there was a woman, more like a shadow, walking towards her wearing only a light nightgown, but in the blink of an eye she was gone, making Rey notice that there was no one there. _Maybe I'm losing my mind_ , she thought, _but I don't care anymore_.

When she managed to get through the door, she noticed that Thane, Amedda and Plutt were still on the sidewalk in front of the nightclub. For a second she was thankful they hadn't seen her because she pulled on her hood so she wouldn't be seen anymore and headed across the street, but it was too late when she heard one of them shout her name.

"Rey!" She was forced to turn around to answer Thane's call. "We have been waiting for you."

Rey disguised it, looking at the other two just behind him.

"Sorry. I thought you'd gone already", she lied.

"Plutt has invited us up to his place."

She took a deep breath, thinking about what she could say so she could get rid of them without looking rude.

"Look, maybe tomorrow, OK?"

"Rey, this is important", he insisted.

"This headache is killing me", she tried again.

"The stuff that he's talking about, that is exactly what you need" Thane tried again, but Rey had just noticed that crazy thing was happening again.

As soon as she looked around, she was no longer in Jakku's dusk, in front of the nightclub she had just played. She was in an apartment she probably never knew, and in front of her was a man eating a burrito while he was laughing with her, a man who despite never having seen, she felt extremely connected with.

As soon as she managed to get back to her reality, Thane was still looking at her and waiting for her answer, but instead of denying it, she accepted his invite.

x

This was probably one of the best burritos Poe had ever eaten. Finn had given up on the idea because he was so much more eager to eat nachos, but the two had decided that the evening dinner would be Mexican food, and Finn was so excited that he decided to make brownies for dessert as well.

"Remember your first weed brownie?"

"Our first Pride", Finn replied while mixing the ingredients and eating at the same time. "You had tried it before and we decided to buy that afternoon to eat together."

The two had flashbacks about that day, when they spent hours and hours sitting on top of each other and kissing until their lips were swollen. Poe still remembered Finn whispering " _your lips are so amazing_ " over and over between kisses.

"Holy shit, we were so high" Poe laughed when he remembered and Finn accompanied his laugh, but before he had been reflective about the memories of that day.

"But you know what I remember best about that day?" he asked, going towards Poe and sitting next to him while remembering the rest of that day.

After spending the afternoon at Finn's apartment, the two decided to walk around the city until they found a party where Poe had said he knew the hosts. Coincidentally, Finn had found countless acquaintances within the party, including an old friend named Cody who introduced him to the other friends who were accompanying him.

"Hey, guys, this is Finn, the guy I've been talking about, and this is his…"

"Friend," Poe was quick to reply, "I'm Poe."

"Poe, the Friend."

"Wait. I know you," One of Cody's friends said to Finn, "you're the tranny that blogs about politics."

At first Finn laughed and agreed, but soon noticed that the woman was not happy.

"I totally disagree with what you said about dropping LGBT."

"Hey, come on, relax. It's a party" Cody interrupted her, but the woman insisted.

"We fought hard for that recognition."

"I just thought that the distinctions were separating us, especially trans women."

"Bullshit. They're just another colonizing male trying to take up any space left to women, and you're trying to be one of them."

"Say one more thing about Finn and I will make you leave this party straight to the police station." Poe interrupted her, and that's when Finn felt tears well up in his eyes.

"Oh, yeah?" The woman teased him, but Finn was already calling him to get out of there.

"Oh, please, she's a loud-mouth bitch."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you!" Poe replied, and right after he went after Finn who had just left the discussion. "Finn!"

When he approached Finn, Poe noticed that he was crying.

"Wait! What is it? You never cry at stuff like that."

"I'm not crying because of her."

"Then what?"

"I'm crying because no one's ever defended me before."

And Poe's heart melted. It was the first time he hugged Finn in public, and at that moment he wasn't much caring about the consequences. He just needed to hug him, strong enough for him to know how much Poe loves him.

"That's the day I knew I'd always love you" Finn told him, after they recalled that memory that Finn would never forget while they were eating Mexican food.

Then Poe kissed him, even though his lips were soaked with hot sauce, feeling his boyfriend's guacamole breath. He loves him. They love each other.

"Maybe this is what you need" Poe said to him.

"What?" Finn asked, and Poe pointed to the brownie jar that Finn had been mixing for minutes.

When they looked at each other, the two knew how to say that they were thinking exactly together to put weed in that brownie to remember those good memories before heading to Jarek's play higher than they had been before.

Better than Finn could expect, Poe was feeling quite comfortable with the guests before the show. Most people knew him, but they were all very welcoming and Poe didn't care much about what they would think.

"He is wonderful" Jarek told him as they watched Poe in a distant circle talking with others guests.

"He is. An amazing person," as much as Jarek also thought Poe was his friend, he didn't really care to ask, "thanks for letting us in through the back doors."

"No problem. As much as I love fame, I wouldn’t like to see a fan riot at the theater door stealing my spotlight," Jarek joked, but what was worrying Finn most were not the fans. It were the paparazzis, "thanks for coming."

"Oh, my God, of course, I was so excited to see your new piece."

"A bit nervous about it, actually."

"Why?" Jarek's friend who was at his side asked him.

"Well, it's kind of a downer. This is Pride. People want to feel good."

"I don't. During the '80s, Pride was a funeral march" his friend said.

"I know. I want to remember that. I want to connect to that. I want to show people how my life and all of this is made possible by those lives and those deaths."

When the show started, instrumental music played in the background while a speech was narrated and danced by Jarek and three other men, a contemporary dance. Finn listened to the speech trying not to cry, " _I walked in the room and saw a man in his early 30s who looked like he was 92 who was skin and bones, who weighed maybe 80 pounds_ ", the voice said as they watched the men dance, " _who was on a respirator. And he said: You've gotta do me a favor. And I said: Whatever it is, just ask. And he said: I can't go on like this. If you could just carry me up to the roof and throw me over the roof. I only weigh about 80 pounds, and you're strong, you could do it,_ " as the man narrated, his voice was getting weaker, a crying voice, and Finn could no longer hold back his tears. It was when Poe held his hand in the dark of that place that Finn noticed that he was not the only one crying. " _And then I said: I can't do that. You can't ask that of me. And when he died, they came in... in hazmat suits, and they put him in a body bag._ "

And then the lights went out, the music ended, and there was no more voice. Only one spotlight was lit, and there was a woman on the stage, in a white nightgown, looking directly at Finn. It only lasted a few seconds, but what scared him most was to notice that soon afterwards everyone was applauding, and that there was no woman on the stage, only the dancers thanking for the applause. Finn might even say he was going crazy, but when he looked away Poe was just as scared as he was.

x

Despite the thick drops of rain, the sky was divided into fragments of clouds and a bluish sky that poured rays of sunlight through these open spaces, dropping a huge rainbow over the funeral. Hux could say the rain was only making it even more difficult to handle that, but he used to like the rain so much that maybe that was the only good thing he could see from the whole situation.

The priest's speech was long enough to make him yawn, " _we are born into this world the same way we shall leave it: alone. Our only comfort, the only presence that remains constant, is the love of our Father in heaven._ "

 _Bullshit_ , he thought, _I never had a father to save me_. And there he was, at his grandfather's funeral pretending to care for him as much as he pretended to care for his father's funeral.

Soon afterwards they proceeded with the funeral while they were carrying the coffin and Hux was following a little further back. Beside him was Ahsoka, his childhood friend, who was probably just as fed up as he was. And there was still this damn headache, making him angrier than he already was.

"You all right?" She asked him as soon as she saw him rub his forehead.

"Migraine." Hux stated.

"I'm like Grandpa up there," they heard Maul's voice right behind them, also grandson of Hux's grandfather, which made him his cousin. A cousin that Hux wishes he never had.

"Cold and pickled?" Ahsoka joked, she hated him as much as Hux.

"I dream big, like he did," Maul replied, "nothing petty, like you two. That's all you'll ever be: petty thieves. Not me. My next score is gonna be huge. Legendary. When you hear about it, your brains are gonna blow out" he said, walking past them and then walking in front of them.

There was contempt on Hux's face, but Ahsoka was laughing, a laugh she tried to hide until she managed to whisper near Hux:

"I'm not sure what'll give me more pleasure... The money, or seeing his face."

And she managed to make Hux laugh too.

As soon as they arrived to bury his grandfather, the two stood in a line to offer their sincere condolences to his uncle, Grievous, Maul's father, and his other aunt. Hux had not promised that it would be honest, but he was not in the mood to create some chaos now.

"Thank you for coming. It means a lot to us." His aunt said as soon as she hugged him.

"Sorry, auntie." Hux replied.

Then Grievous hugged him. A hug so tight it scared Hux.

"Last few days, all he talked about was your father. Saddest day in his life, the day your father died."

"You should go say hello. We'll wait for you." His aunt said to him.

"Pay your respects. He was your father." His uncle asked him.

And so Hux did, heading towards his father's grave, where he had been buried fifteen years ago. Hux stared at his father's picture that had been engraved on the headstone, along with his name, Brendol Hux.

After some minutes staring at that hideous picture, he unzipped his pants and tossed his dick out of his clothes, relieving himself while he pissed right over where his father had been buried. He was paying his respects.

x

"Dad? Dad, where are the umbrellas?" Rose shouted at the door of her father's restaurant while she was trying to find an umbrella, "I can't find any umbrella." She was already late enough, and she knew the rain she was hearing would delay her even more.

"What do you need an umbrella for?" He asked.

_You gotta be kidding me._

"Please, no jokes. I'm late already. I have a big meeting, and I can't show up dripping wet."

"Umbrellas are upstairs, but you don't need one. Look, the sun is shining. It's going to be a beautiful day."

As soon as her father approached her, he invited her to observe the landscape from the outside. In fact it was sunny and the streets were dry, with no clouds in the sky.

 _That's impossible..._ She had heard the raindrops and thunder.

"But, I heard it..."

"Maybe you shouldn't be going to work. It's so close to the wedding." Her father lovingly interrupted her.

"Dad, you know work is important to me."

"I know."

"You sent me to university to get a degree, not to find a husband." She said. "And I'm sure I heard thunder, and rain..."

"Maybe what you heard was the sound of your father's tears, thinking how soon he is going to have to give his daughter away." He said in a tone of tenderness, and Rose smiled.

"I thought you were happy I was getting married."

"Tears can be happy... and sad."

Then he hugged Rose before she could hurry to work, where she had a long day until she was able to finish her shift before the sun went down. That was when she decided to go to the temple.

Rose was adept of _Jediism_ , her religion since she was a child and that she continued to the present day, praying to the Force and the Jedi who were her goddesses and always visiting the largest Jedi temple in Hays Minor, her country.

She approached the great statues in the temple, five warriors, each representing the five main values of Jediism: peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony and the Force, and knelt in front of them in a sign of respect.

"My ladies. I'm trying to become a better person." She started by saying, with a bright smile on her face. "I know I am not important enough to deserve your attention when there are so many terrible things wrong in this world. I can't tell you how bad I feel even being here, because I know I shouldn't be asking you this, but I have no one else to turn to." It was the first time her smile disappeared. "OK, um... This weekend, I am to marry a very important man, who you probably know, Beaumont. He is the son of the owner of the pharmaceutical company where I work. He's very smart, and very handsome, and all the women at the company want desperately to marry him, but he never took an interest in anyone… except me. I should tell you, I have never seen my parents so full of joy as when they received his proposal. I mean, I thought they were excited when I received my degree from university. Maybe you saw my dad, like, dancing around the house. How could I say no? I mean, Beaumont is, according to everyone, the perfect husband for me. Except for one little fact…" Rose swallowed. "I do not love him."

x

"It's like I was there." Ben said as he got out of the passenger seat car after parking. This time Tai was driving. "I could feel the wind coming in through the broken windows. The smell of burnt mattress. It didn't seem like a dream."

The two were headed for the police station door with a coffee in one hand and a bag with their breakfast in the other hand, dressed in their respective uniforms.

"Maybe you were astro-projecting, like Dr. Strange." Tai joked.

"Why would I expect anything different from you?" Ben laughed.

"Officer Strange."

"Fuck off."

"Officer Strange. That's your name." The two entered so that they could finish eating and continue their shift.

As soon as surveillance was requested for him and Tai, the two returned to the vehicle in search of the place where they would be prowling: Belsavis, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Alderaan.

Ben was watching through the window as he saw the diverse inhabitants of the region, mostly gangbangers who looked at them with contempt.

"Every time I come down here, I remember how much you can actually feel how much they hate us." Ben avoided looking.

"Gangbangers hate cops, cops hate gangbangers. It's natural." Tai told him while continuing to drive.

"How is that natural?"

"I don't know." Tai shrugged off. "Like dogs hate cats. They're the enemy. You certainly got plenty of reason to hate them. After what they did to your old man?" Tai looked at him. "Shit, I'd never forgive something like that."

" _One-Adam-12, we have a report of gunfire_ ", they heard from the radio.

"Eleven-12, 10-4" Ben answered the radio.

"With any luck, there'll be a few less cats in the world." Tai said, accelerating the vehicle and turning on the car siren. "Let's get 'em, cowboy."

x

Ahsoka was focused on the key they were copying while Hux was watching her job. For a minute he even thought he was hearing the sound of a siren, but Ahsoka brought him back to reality.

"After you left the funeral, Sergei started blowing on about your dad." Hux took a significant drag on the cigarette he was smoking while she finished the key of the place they were going to steal and told him about the funeral. "Said there wasn't a better box man in the world than your dad, now or ever." She handed the key so that Hux could look. "Said the only reason your dad got caught was because he was obsessed with trying to crack an S&D safe. Said they're uncrackable. Said your father was an idiot for trying."

A weak smile plastered Hux's face as he looked at the key, but soon after he handed it back to Ahsoka.

"You sure that gets us in?" Hux asked.

"Am I sure? You notice the sign outside?" Ahsoka had left the locksmith where they worked closed all day.

She laughed as he took a deep breath. _That's it_ , they couldn't wait any longer. There was nothing holding them now.

"Let's go."

"Armitage, wait..." Ahsoka held him before he went to the door, and he looked at her. "The safe in the house, it's one of them S&D's, isn't it?"

And his silence confirmed everything for her.

The path they took was very simple and short, close to Ahsoka's house, and the streets were already practically empty. There were only the two of them, two shadows dressed in black while Ahsoka concentrated on turning the key in the lock of the establishment and Hux made sure that no one appeared.

"Open Sesame!" Ahsoka joked as soon as she successfully opened the door.

When the two entered, she went towards the building's alarm and placed on its side a device that would hack the system and unlock it for as long as they needed, so they just had to go up the stairs and find the floor where the safe was, a huge black S&D safe in the corner of the big living room.

Hux sat down on the red carpet and went in search of the stethoscope, taking a deep breath before starting the process of opening the safe. In the first few seconds he didn't want to lie to Ahsoka, but he was already desperate.

After a few minutes he started to concentrate, but again the noise of the siren distracted him. That was when he took off his headphones in despair and looked for Ahsoka, who was watching through the building's glass window.

"Was that a siren?"

Ahsoka frowned as she looked at him.

"Huh? Didn't hear anything."

Hux searched one last time to make sure he heard wrong.

"You know I brought a drill." Ahsoka told him.

And Hux ignored her, putting the headphones back on to focus on opening the safe again.

"There's no shame in drilling" Ahsoka whispered, more to herself because Hux was no longer listening to her. He was just focused on listening for the little _clicks_ looking for the first lock.

x

_Click._

_Click._

_Click._

For a moment Rey thought it was in the music, but it was too loud and she didn't remember that sound in the song she was listening to. As soon as she removed the headphones, the _click_ continued, letting her terrified. She tried to see if Thane, Amedda and Plutt were causing that sound, but at the moment they were not in the apartment because they had gone out to buy some beer, and they left her there for a few minutes.

As the annoying noise subsided, she began to hear a car siren. She even stood up and put the headphones aside to look out the window, but the streets were empty and there were no cars outside. Only the sound of the siren was increasing, more and more.

x

The car's speed was too high, but Ben had already gotten used to it, especially when he had Tai as a co-worker and driver for a long time. As they approached the indicated location, more people appeared on the streets and ran to escape them, and as soon as they pulled over and got out of the car, they heard four more shots.

"Shots fired. Requesting backup" Ben called on the radio as he carefully approached the place, an old building. Tai followed him.

They walked cautiously while aiming their guns at eye level and paying attention to every detail. There were no more shots and they weren't even listening to any noise as they walked between graffiti walls and cobwebs, being careful in whatever curve he needed to turn.

What he expected awaited him at the exit of one of the openings without a door. As soon as Ben turned, he saw a boy sitting against the brick wall. His reflexes prevented him from shooting as soon as he got scared when he found him, just as he had more time to analyze the situation. It was a young boy, about fourteen years old, sitting breathlessly while pressing with one hand a wound in the area of his belly, already all bloody. The other hand that Ben didn't notice was hidden, and the boy used it to take a gun out from behind his back and point it at him. Ben was also quick and aimed his own gun even closer to the boy, but neither of them fired. That was when the boy gave up and dropped the gun on the floor.

"Help me." 

And Ben couldn't deny it. He put his gun away and knelt to check the wound while Tai had finally arrived in the same room.

"What happened?" Tai asked as Ben carefully studied the boy shot.

"Gunshot wound. Looks like a hollow point," Ben carefully removed the sweatshirt the boy was wearing, "get an ambulance."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"What do you think this is, TV? Ain't no ambulance coming to Belsavis for a gunshot. Not fast enough to make a difference anyway."

 _He wasn't wrong_ , Ben thought as he listened to the boy's heavy breathing. If they weren't coming to get him, then Ben was going to take him.

"The fuck you doing, Solo?" Tai asked as Ben moved carefully to get the boy up.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Greez."

"Greez, I'm Ben. I need you to press this as hard as you can" he pointed to the sweatshirt he had worn to stop the bleeding.

"Are you kidding me?" Tai asked as soon as he saw him raise Greez with him.

"I know you, Tai. You don't want to stand there and let this kid die either."

"That's what he'd do if it was you or me."

 _Well, I'm not like him_ , it was all he thought before ignoring his friend's comment and heading towards his vehicle, with Tai cursing behind him as he accompanied him.

Even though he said he was against his attitude, Tai helped him to sit in the back while he placed the boy on his lap and drove the car faster than he was used to driving.

"Hang on," Ben told him "you OK?"

"Just a little cold" Greez said, while he was breathing deeply and moaning in pain. "This your first time in the back seat, Ben?" He joked, trying to soften the situation while Ben covered him with one of his coats.

"I've been back here more times than I care to admit" Ben said.

"Are you some sort of gangsta cop or somethin'?" Greez asked, trying to forget the pain that was taking over his body.

"Old man's police. Had my fair share of teenage rebellion, I guess."

"Never met my dad. He was shot before I was born."

He didn't quite know what to say, he just wanted Tai to arrive soon so that he could avoid any bad thoughts.

When he parked, Ben didn't even wait for his help to get out of the car and run through the hospital's front door.

"Emergency!" He shouted, "kid's bleeding bad here."

"That's a gunshot" A nurse saw them.

"Yeah, I know."

"I'm sorry, we can't treat that here."

"What?"

"Are you new? You need to go and get an ambulance and take him to Mt. Sinai" She said more calmly than Ben could expect from someone in front of a dying child.

"The kid's gonna be dead before we get there."

"I'm sorry. It's policy."

"What kind of policy lets a kid die?" Ben provoked in desperate.

"We were losing so many resources to gunshots, we couldn't take care of all the other patients that needed help around here. We've been a better hospital since we stopped taking kids like him."

"Please" Ben asked, in a tone of suffering that he was trying to hide since they were in the car so as not to despair the boy. "Please."

It was the first time the nurse looked at the boy without disdain. At this stage the boy no longer had the strength to moan.

After seconds evaluating the situation, she gave in, and called the other nurses to help her take him while Ben went to the waiting room, his uniform all bloody.

A few minutes later Tai came, accompanying him without asking much. Tai knew how desperate Ben was, and to be honest even Tai was a little worried. Ben understood him too much, Tai would never have the courage to let anyone die, regardless of who he was.

Some hours passed before the nurse came to bring some news for both of them.

"The doctor just came out of surgery. Life signs are stable. He'll probably make it."

"OK," he replied, breathing more relieved since he got there, "thank you." So the two got up to leave, but the nurse called him before leaving.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" She asked, without first letting him answer, "If he lives and he kills someone, let's say a cop, how you gonna feel about that?"

He left without answering because he didn't know what to say, but he didn't feel any worse than he would if he had left Greez to die.

x

Every time Hux came close to the last position of the lock, he had to turn the lock and start all over again because something was wrong.

"Fifty-eight minutes" Ahsoka repeated, not wanting Hux to know how desperate she was.

She noticed that he was starting to get stressed, and had already lost count of how many times he had started over again.

"Fuck" He said, taking off his headphones and unexpectedly getting up. This action caught Ahsoka's attention.

"Hey!" She called him, but he ignored it.

Hux adjusted his pants and approached the couch in the house, taking the remote and sitting down before turning on the TV.

"What's this? We're throwing in the towel?" Ahsoka asked.

"I need a break" He was even too calm for a situation like that.

"Hey, you understand we got less than an hour, unless I'm wrong and Maul's early, then we got less than that."

"You're never wrong about shit like that." Hux said, and Ahsoka even had to agree, which didn't make her any less worried, but when she saw him change the channels, she gave up trying to argue and stood right behind the couch waiting for him.

Hux changed the channels until he saw one with a show called _Talent Spotlight_.

"Really?" Ahsoka asked, she was outraged.

"What? It relaxes me."

"This shit relaxes you?" But she had no answer.

Hux was focused on the show's first candidate. A woman in a sparkling dress was singing, her voice delicate and pleasant to hear.

"This girl, she's really good" Hux said. "Her name is Laura. I watched her last week. She sings like a musical instrument. She uses a language of pure emotion."

"Yeah, she's good," Ahsoka answered him, "she's never gonna win."

Hux looked at her with a surprised look, more sad than surprised.

"Why?"

"Her eyes are too close together. She looks like a camel."

"Shut up" Hux looked at the TV again, trying to ignore her comment.

"Camel's never gonna win."

This time Hux was already far away, having flashbacks of his childhood when he invited his father to see him perform at school. Everyone was already prepared, he was going to sing while his colleagues were going to play the instruments and they all would be guided by the teacher, but as soon as the light turned on he felt paralyzed. He spent hours looking at the audience in silence, more directly at his father sitting in the back while his teacher desperately called him so he could start singing. She even started to sing softly for him to accompany her, but all he could do was face his father getting up from his seat and heading towards the door, not without first turning to look at him with a wicked smile on his face. A smile from someone who knew that Hux was a failure. That he could never do anything right. A disappointment. His smile turned into a laugh, a loud laugh that caught everyone's attention, a laugh directly to him, the loser.

When Hux returned to the present, he noticed that Laura was already being evaluated on the program, and she had just lost.

"Told you" Ahsoka said.

Suddenly Hux found himself in that woman, bringing ghosts from his past that made him to react. He was going to open that safe, mainly to prove to himself that he was much better than his father, not just as a person. He would crack the uncrackable, which his father was unable to do. Because he was a disappointment. And he was dead, thankfully.

He got up, then turned off the TV; Ahsoka watched him sit down again in front of the safe and prepare after cracking his fingers and stretching his arms to ease the tension. As soon as he put the headphones back on, he knew he wouldn't fail. It was personal.

After a lot of minutes Hux was already sweating, concentrating on the lock while Ahsoka was startled by the alarm on her watch. Time was up.

"That's it" She warned him, disappointed. "Fuck, it's over" They wouldn't even have time to drill if they wanted to. "Hey!"

She nudged Hux, but he remained motionless, eyes closed focused on the lock as he moved it slowly. Ahsoka ran to look out the window, and she spotted Maul's car parking.

"Shit, it's Maul! Armie, we gotta go" But he still hadn’t answered her, so she approached him. "Hey, Armitage, please. He's going to fucking kill us. I don't want to die!"

And again he didn't answer it. He was so close to hearing the last point, sweat dripping from his nose as he slowly moved the lock. Until he felt it.

There was no more friction to hear. The lock was unlocked.

Hux took the tension out of his face as he opened his eyes, looking at the lock and moving his finger to the center button, pressing it.

And the safe opened.

He did it.

Even Ahsoka was no longer able to despair at Maul's arrival, because she was as surprised as Hux. As soon as he finished opening the door, the two saw at least thirty small diamond stones.

"You cracked the uncrackable" Ahsoka said, after Hux took off the headphones and sat relieved. "You did it" The two smiled at each other.

So they hurried. Ahsoka threw the diamonds in a plastic bag she brought while Hux finished packing all the equipment. Finally, they closed the safe again and turned the lock, hurried down the stairs towards the door without first removing the device they had brought to hack the alarm system. As they left, they could already hear Maul and his team breaking into the door and probably cutting the system wires so they could steal an empty safe.

x

She couldn't hear anything from the outside world. Her headphones were too loud, and she had no desire to turn down the volume of the sad music she was listening to. But Rey was watching everything, with a melancholy that used to embrace her at certain times of the day. At first she saw Amedda, with a lit cigarette in his hand as he burned his pipe and inhaled deeply on the drug smoke that Plutt had offered them. He laughed, and immediately threw himself slowly on the couch without first handing Thane his pipe, and there he lay, traveling in his own vibe.

Then it was Thane, who repeated the same procedure that Amedda had done, and just like his friend he also lay down in the armchair, leaving only Rey and Plutt sober. That was when she noticed that he had not stopped looking at her. She looked away, but it was too late, and after a few seconds he approached her and sat on the edge of the chair she was sitting on. When she looked at him again, he asked if he could take her headphones off and she nodded, so he gently took them off of her ears until he put the headphones on her lap.

"You all right?" Plutt asked.

She nodded her head.

"You're sweating."

And she didn't even know why. He brought his fingers close to her wrist, where the scars she had for obvious reasons were visible, and pressed them carefully against her wrist.

"Your pulse is racing."

"I'm fine" She finally said.

"You're scared. You needn't be. You're so Beautiful. I don't just mean in a physical way. The warmth... pouring out of your heart, even though you work hard to hide it."

He looked at her tenderly as she listened to his words.

"You don't belong with these man. You know it's true. Don't you?" He asked, in a low voice that soothed her. "I used to be like you. Like an exposed nerve of a broken tooth. I used anything I could to insulate. Music… Books… Booze… Anything I could to keep myself separate from the rest of the world. Eventually I felt protected, you know, I felt safe. But also I never felt so completely alone" She noticed that his eye was already red and starting to threaten tears, as well as hers. "Then one day a friend, she gave me a gift. She took away my armor. She tore down my walls. Her gift... It reminded me what it felt like... to be alive."

"What did she give you?" Rey asked, feeling a tear run down her cheek.

"This." He handed her the pipe that the boys used before.

She positioned it at the level of her mouth, and he helped her light the lighter to burn it until Rey could inhale the smoke.

And so she did, until she felt the spontaneous pressure in her head.

Everything started to spin. Everything was slower, out of her control as she tried to breathe, and it took her a while to get back against the chair, but when she noticed, she was no longer in Plutt's apartment. Not even Plutt was with her anymore.

She was walking outside a cafeteria, in a clear sky while a man was talking to her right beside her. Somehow she knew his name was Tai, dressed in a police uniform as they approached a police vehicle so they could get in. When she looked at herself in the reflection of the window glass, she was not her. Her reflection was of a man, a tall man with black hair and who was dressed in the same police uniform as his friend. And suddenly she was no longer him, he had just gotten in the car while she continued outside, watching the window, but now he was looking at her too.

Rey was enchanted by him, mesmerized by his gaze as he connected with her through that gaze. When she reached out to touch the glass, the car drove on, leaving her there alone while they were still looking at each other.

Now she was gone. She was on the beach, a beach that this time she knew well, and it wasn’t her the way she was, it was a young version of her, walking and humming through the dark sand of Niima as she approached a dark cave she used to explore.

She was happy again. Happy as she used to be when she was that age.

x

Ben was confused. He couldn't hear any of the conversation Tai was telling him because he was still feeling strange, trying to assimilate what he had seen, the girl he had seen and the feeling that had taken over him.

"Stop the car" He interrupted Tai.

"Hm?"

"I said stop the car!"

"What the fuck?"

Tai came to a sudden stop. And without Ben necessarily looking, he already knew where he was.

"This is where it happened."

"What happened?"

"It's where she killed herself" Ben turned to look at the abandoned house.

He took off his seatbelt and opened the door to leave the car, while Tai was still trying to understand what Ben was talking about. Still, he followed him because he didn't want to leave him alone. As the two entered, Ben felt a strange sensation. Strange because he had already seen that place, the same place in the dream he had, that coincidentally he knew where it was located. The same walls, the same windows, the same smell, the same mattress...

"This is it" He put his gun away and ran towards the mattress.

"Ah, hell no." Tai was already tired.

"This wasn't a dream."

"Of all the partners, I end up with Benjamin Solo, the Doctor Strange."

"Tai, a woman killed herself right here."

"Where's the blood, Ben? Maybe she only shot herself in the fifth dimension, so we can't see the blood" He joked.

"OK, I've never been here before, but I know about this" He bent down and searched under the mattress, for a metal box he found and took it open for Tai to see. "Drugs. There was a gun, too."

"There's shit everywhere, man. Look, you're freakin' me out. Show me evidence of a crime, and you got me. So, until then, do your little _séance_ , and I'll be in the car. All right?"

So Tai turned and left, leaving Ben alone while he explored that environment to try to remember more about the dream he had. _Where's the blood?_

Ben bent down so he could lean against the mattress, trying to become more familiar with the situation, but suddenly a feeling of comfort embraced him. A tenderness that made him look to his side, and there she was. The girl he had seen in the car, a few feet away from him.

"Uh… Hi" He stood up, trying not to look awkward, but she smiled.

"This is where she died" Rey said to him.

"Did you know her?" Ben asked as he approached her.

She denied it, letting him even more intrigued.

"How do you know she died here?"

"I saw her."

"Do you live here?" She denied it again. "Where do you live?"

"Jakku."

"What are you doing here?" He got even closer.

"I don't know" She laughed, and Ben was fascinated by her smile. "I don't know where I am."

"Alderaan." Ben helped her.

"Alderaan? I've never been to Alderaan!" 

As soon as she laughed, Ben smiled along with her, and as confused as they were, they had found comfort in that situation. A comfort they hadn't felt for a long time. But he saw her smile slowly disappear, and when she turned to look at something Ben couldn't see, she screamed.

"Oh, no! What are you doing?"

"Don't you fucking move!" It was Amedda, shouting with a gun pointed at someone who had just entered Plutt's apartment.

Then he fired, making Rey to scream.

It took a while for Rey to understand that she was back, but Ben was still able to see her because he saw her protect herself from the gunshots. When he realized, he was also at Plutt's apartment.

"Stop" Ben asked.

"Open the fucking safe!" Thane asked, with Plutt in his arms weakened by the countless wounds that probably Thane and Amedda had caused him.

Ben was no longer there, abandoned at the Alderaan's building trying to understand what had happened, and Rey was alone again.

"Why are you doing this?" Rey asked, startled.

"He has just had a shipment come in, and me and Amedda have been trackin' it." Thane said as the two aimed their guns at Plutt kneeling on the floor. "We were gonna hit him yesterday, but he wanted you here."

Rey was scared as she watched Plutt trying to move, but Thane stopped him again.

"Now, a smart guy like you probably has a gun in there" Amedda pointed to where Plutt wanted to reach.

"Don't hurt him" Rey asked, seeing the man's black eye and blood coming out of his nose.

"Is that why you came? Cause you wanna fuck him?" Thane provoked, and Rey felt insulted by that question. "Rey, he will kill you without blinking if I didn't have this" and as soon as he showed his gun, he punched Plutt in the head in a way that made him fall unconscious on the floor.

"I have to go" Rey said, trying desperately to get up, but Thane caught up with her.

"No, no, no, no, no. Rey, you're not going anywhere. You're part of this."

"Let me go!"

"Rey, this is the break that we've been waiting for" he stopped her again.

Meanwhile, Amedda was filling a black suitcase with all the drugs and money that were inside the apartment safe.

"This is our chance. You said you wanted to go to Coruscant. We wanted a different life. That's what you said, right?"

Rey would start to cry if she hadn't noticed the strange man to lift a shotgun and shoot Thane in the leg next to Rey, causing him to fall. At the time Amedda got up and shot the stranger further, but Plutt had stood up and stabbed Amedda in the neck. At the same time he reached for the gun and aimed it at Thane, and they both fired at the same time, the two of them being shot and falling to the ground, leaving Rey covered with the blood that had splattered and completely in shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading this! i'm so excited about this project
> 
> i'm so sorry if it's a long chapter, but i'm trying to match with the episodes and that was a HUGE episode
> 
> if you notice, instead of talking about countries, i decided to write about fictional places inspired by star wars planets, especially because i don't want to be disrespectful writing about countries and cultures i don't know about, that's why i also created the "jediism" religion, please let me know if i'm being by somehow disrespectful 
> 
> in the original project i was supposed to let finn as a cis man, but then i was talking with a friend (she's @Isolated_Leoa on twitter) and she was talking about how stranger it would be to write about a tv show who talks about trans people and who was created and directed by two trans women to not have any trans woman/man, so i've discussed this in twitter and i found byron (he's @LXRDBYRXN on twitter) who said it was okay, and he's helping me by reading all chapters with finn and telling me if i'm being disrespectful, you can find all the discussion [here](https://twitter.com/adamdrivor/status/1291836124470685696)
> 
> english is not my native english, so please i'm so sorry for my grammar mistakes, let me know if and when there's something wrong
> 
> if you speak portuguese, there's a translated link [here](https://www.spiritfanfiction.com/historia/sense8-star-wars-20130760/capitulo2)
> 
> thank you so much! ♡


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